The former EU judge describes his challenging start to international practice
Sir Nicholas Forwood QC has recently joined White & Case as part-time counsel.
What was your route into the profession?
Unusual—at least it was at the time. I did not come from a legal family. At school I was respectably good at maths and physics, so I read mechanical sciences at Cambridge with a view, at that stage, to going into the family engineering firm. After two years I changed to law, which perhaps was lucky as shortly afterwards the family firm went bust.
What has been your biggest career challenge so far?
Moving to Brussels in 1979 to be the resident barrister in a new set of chambers specialising in EEC law, and then being told by the Bar Council that I was not entitled to a practising certificate as I did not have a clerk, or chambers in England. After a few worrying weeks they relented, but it was scarcely an encouraging start to international practice.
Which person within the legal profession inspires you most?
My two great inspirations have been Sir Jeremy Lever QC, who led me as part of the defence team in IBM’s gigantic anti-trust battle with the European Commission in the early 1980s, and who instilled in me whatever intellectual rigour and understanding of competition law I can lay claim to, and David Vaughan QC, who encouraged me to move to Brussels in 1979, and who also taught me that one must never give up, however hopeless a case may seem. Indeed, his ability to produce rabbits from hats when least expected by all around him has been his hall-mark.
If you weren’t a lawyer, what would you choose as an alternative career?
I have sometimes wondered how my career would have developed had I remained an engineer. I enjoyed problem-solving, and I liked computers—I suspect that I was one of the very few judges who had actually programmed a main-frame computer. I would like to think I might have been another Steve Jobs.
Who is your favourite fictional lawyer?
‘Flurry’ Yates, the eponymous hero of Somerville and Ross’s Memoirs of an Irish RM, who managed both to discharge his duties as a resident magistrate in 19th century Ireland, and in so doing demonstrate a deep understanding of the best and worst of human nature, and (intermittently) to keep control of his lunatic Irish setter Maria while out rough shooting snipe and woodcock on the Irish bogs.
What change would you make to the profession?
I would require all barristers, before starting at the independent Bar, to spend at least one year in the litigation department of a firm of solicitors, or even an international law firm with a major dispute resolution practice. This could even take the place of pupillage, which would greatly reduce the difficulties faced by many newly qualified barristers in finding a pupillage place in chambers. The split profession works well, given the particular demands of courtroom advocacy and the length of English trials—which continues to amaze lawyers from other jurisdictions. But a better understanding of the other “half” of the profession would be a benefit to all.
How do you relax?
Walking across Europe, though it’s not what some would call relaxing! To date, my wife Sally and I have walked from the North Sea in Holland to Nice (2,300km) and then between Vienna and Brittany (2,900km) and we are now on a further trek—crossing the Alps for the second time—between Heidelberg and Verona (900km to date, and still plodding on).
